Advent 2 - A God With Skin On

 

Homily for Advent 2 – Incarnation Series, Part 2

December 8, 2024

Truly Human, Truly Divine

 

            A father went to help his four-year-old with his bedtime prayers, and after praying, he went to turn out the light. But the boy cried out, “No, don’t leave, I’m scared of the dark and I don’t want to be here alone!”

            The father reassured him, “Yes, but God is always with you, you have nothing to fear.”

            The boy quickly replied, “But I want someone with skin on!”

            The very cornerstone of our Catholic Faith is the Incarnation – that God took on skin, as it were. But did it really happen? Wasn’t that just one of many myths from the ancient world?

            Many ancient cultures had stories of a God-man. For example, Hercules was supposed to be a half-god, half-man. The ancient Arabs had a god named Theandrios, whose name literally means god-man (Theos is God in Greek, and Andros is man). Greek and Roman culture had their Dionysius or Bacchus, which were gods who descended to mankind to give them gifts (usually wine or fertility). There were even legends of several gods who died and then resurrected.

            But the Incarnation of Christ differed from these in several ways. First, most of the myths featured men and women who became gods, not God who became man. In fact, it was an ancient Roman custom to deify a famous or influential person, but they still made the distinction between a “deus” (a god) and a “divus” (a man who has been divinized). Interestingly, the female version of “divus” is “diva”, from which we get the English term for a self-centered female celebrity, who thinks themselves a god!

            Secondly, God-taking-flesh did not benefit Him in the least – it was entirely for our benefit. In all of the other myths, the gods take on flesh for their own benefit. They never do so out of gratuitous love. Maybe they wanted some worship or Adoration, but that was always to boost their own ego. God wants us to worship Him, not because He is an egomaniac, but because He knows it is our happiness to worship Him. He’s willing to take on flesh to allow us to access Him – He is a God with “skin on”.

            But what of all the old myths? Is Christianity just another one of those old mystery religions? CS Lewis had a great line; he said that “Christianity isn’t just God made man, it is also myth made fact.” His point is that all of the myths actually point to a real, historical event. Humans have always had an intuition that God would become man; hence the myths by which pagan cultures told the story. In Jesus, though, the myth has become reality. No longer do we need to wander in the mists of myth; we now have the hard evidence of a place, a time, a Person.

            Luke drives that home in his typical crystal-clear fashion. Most myths begin, “Once upon a time.” But Luke makes it clear that the Incarnation happened in a real historical context. Listen to his words again:

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,

when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,

and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee,

and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region

of Ituraea and Trachonitis,

and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene,

during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,

the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert.

            Even the early Church struggled to understand the radical nature of the Incarnation. In the early 200s, there was a heresy floating around called Docetism. This heresy declared that Jesus didn’t really take flesh, but that He was an apparition. If the angels could appear to people with bodies, even though they don’t actually have them, then maybe Jesus could do the same – just appear to have lived in the flesh, when He was really just a mirage.

            But this doesn’t make any sense. It was necessary for Christ to be fully human, for two reasons. First, as St. Gregory of Nazianzen said, “What was not assumed was not redeemed.” In other words, if Jesus didn’t have real human flesh, He could not have redeemed real human flesh. If He didn’t have a human mind, human emotions, and a human will, then He would never have been able to redeem those things. He had to become fully human to redeem all humans.

            But, secondly, He had to become fully human so that we could have the depths of a real relationship with Him. It’s very hard to have a friendship with someone who is much higher than you. I love our Bishop, but when I am with him, I’m always conscious that he is the boss and I’m not. I definitely have to put my best foot forward, lest he assign me to Timbuktu! You may feel the same way with your boss – if he makes decisions on your life, can you really be totally relaxed with him?

            But God wanted to call us no longer servants but friends. Thus He had to lower Himself to our level so that we can truly share the depths of our hearts with Him. Now I can share with Him my joys and sorrows, my weaknesses and my hopes, because He knows what it is to experience human joy and sorrow. I know that He, too, was weak, and that He experienced human love and suffering.

            So, do you see Jesus as a close friend? He is indeed Lord, but He took on flesh so He could also be a friend. And with every good friend, He desperately wants to spend time with you. This Advent, amidst the hectic insanity, why not take some time to be with Him? Come to Adoration, pray the Rosary, spend time in daily prayer. He is not a distant God, but one Who has taken flesh in history, and continues to stay with us in the present through the Holy Eucharist.

            We all want to have a God “with skin on”. In the manger, on the Cross, in the Eucharist, we have found such a God.